^B{^#!16!6 December^N! National Day of Finland. Feast day of St Gertrude the Elder, St Abraham of Kratia, St Nicholas of Bari, St Asella, and Saints Dionysia, Majoricus and their Companions.
^B{1492^B} Columbus discovered Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. ^B{1774^B} Austria became the first nation to introduce a state education system. ^B{1877^B} With a recording of himself reciting ^I{Mary Had a Little Lamb^I} Thomas Edison demonstrated the first phonograph, in New Jersey, US. ^B{1907^B} In Monongah, West Virginia 361 people were killed in America's worst mine disaster. ^B{1917^B} Finland proclaimed independence from Russia. ^B{1921^B} The Irish Free State was formally created, as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. ^B{1926^B} Mussolini introduced a tax on bachelors. ^B{1990^B} Saddam Hussein announced that he would free all of the 2,000 foreign hostages held in Iraq and occupied Kuwait.
^B{^I{^#!14!Born ^N}King Henry VI, ^B{1421^B}; George Monck, English admiral, ^B{1608^B}; Warren Hastings, British administrator, ^B{1732^B}; Osbert Sitwell, English writer, ^B{1892^B}; Ira Gershwin, US lyricist, ^B{1896^B}; Dave Brubeck, US jazz musician, ^B{1920^B}.
^B{^I{^#!14!Died ^N}Jean-Baptiste-SimΘon Chardin, French painter, ^B{1779^B}; Madame du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV of France, ^B{1793^B}; Anthony Trollope, English novelist, ^B{1882^B}; Ernst Werner von Siemens, German inventor, ^B{1892^B}; Roy Orbison, US singer and songwriter, ^B{1988^B}.
